Two Sexy!

by Stephanie Bond

  “She’s a multifaceted woman,” Jarett agreed.

  “I have plans for her,” the man murmured thoughtfully. “As long as she stays out of trouble.”

  Jarett tucked away the little kernel of information to pass along to Taylor. Maybe it would help balance her reaction when Jarett explained that he’d arranged for Meg to stand in for her.

  That wasn’t a conversation he was looking for ward to, but hopefully it would be enough to jar Taylor back to her senses.

  A gawky young man with braces caught Jarett’s attention. He was some kind of reporter, be cause he’d been keeping close tabs on Meg all evening, making notes and taking pictures from every angle with a zoom lens. He was probably the president of a local fan club or something.

  “Heckel, how’s it going?” a middle-aged man holding a cocktail walked up and slapped Mort on the back.

  “Carnegie, so glad you could make it.”

  Jarett stepped back to give the men privacy, glad that the executive had something to distract him from ogling Meg.

  Because he wanted to ogle her all by himself.

  “Any reason to get out of Peoria, old friend,” the man said with a laugh.

  Jarett perked up at the sound of Meg’s home-town. What were the odds?

  “I thought you might be looking for a tax write-off before April,” Heckel said.

  “You on the board of this foundation?”

  “An inherited position from my father,” Heckel said with sigh.

  Jarett frowned at the floor.

  “What are you raising money for?”

  “Some library,” Heckel said. “Write me a check for a quarter million and I’ll make sure you get a plaque over the door.”

  Carnegie laughed heartily, then stopped abruptly. “I see something that looks better than a plaque. That’s Taylor Gee, isn’t it?”

  Jarett bit down on the inside of his cheek.

  “Yeah,” Heckel said. “She just might become one of the network’s hottest properties.”

  “She’s hot, all right,” the older man said.

  Jarett shot a glance his way. The man’s beady gaze was fixated on Meg and he slowly wet his fleshy lips.

  Jarett’s stomach turned. Applause broke out, and he was relieved to see Meg had finished the story. He strode to her side to help her to her feet, but another man had beat him to the punch. A slender, black man, handsome and tall. He looked harmless, but then so did most psychopaths.

  For a moment, Meg looked as if she knew the man, then blanked her face. “Oh, thank you—sir.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m sorry to bother you, Miss Gee, but I was supposed to meet a friend here. You might remember her—Meg from Anytime Costumes? She said she was going to talk to you tonight. Have you by chance seen her?”

  Meg nodded carefully. “As a matter of fact, I did talk to her. Earlier.”

  “About the fire?” he asked.

  “Yes. Everything is taken care of,” Meg replied with a languid smile.

  “Good. I guess I missed her somehow.” The man cleared his throat. “Miss Gee, may I say that I’m a huge fan?”

  She beamed. “Thank you.”

  He held out a pen and a cocktail napkin with the name and date of the reception on it. “May I have your autograph?”

  Meg hesitated. “I’m sorry, I…can’t. Would it be all right if I left something at the costume shop with your friend?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  Jarett stepped forward, partly to get her out of the awkward situation, partly because they couldn’t afford for the man to recognize her. But the gawky man with braces cut in.

  “Taylor, what’s this about a fire in a costume shop?”

  Meg hesitated, then looked at Jarett.

  “Miss Gee isn’t taking questions from reporters tonight. Maybe you should move along.”

  The man’s gaze flicked back to Meg. “If you don’t mind me saying, Miss Gee, you look different tonight.”

  Her mouth parted slightly, but she remained silent.

  “Have you had plastic surgery?”

  Jarett placed his hand on the man’s scrawny arm. “I said move along.”

  The man shrugged off Jarett’s hand, but backed away. “Gee, Miss Gee, if I were the suspicious type, I might think you were trying to hide something.”

  Meg didn’t say anything. Wearing a smug expression, the man finally turned and walked toward the exit.

  “Ignore him,” Jarett said near her ear. “He couldn’t possibly know.”

  She turned her smile Jarett’s way. His vital signs skipped a reading or two.

  “How was I?” she whispered.

  “You were…great.” He longed to smooth back the lock of pale hair that had broken free of the twist to rest on her luminous cheek. “Heckel was really impressed.”

  “You don’t think I went overboard?”

  “No. You’re a big hit.” He only hoped that Taylor could live up to the impression that Meg had created. Across the carpeted room, Heckel and the Peoria man headed their way. Jarett clasped her arm and steered her toward the door. “Are you ready to leave?”

  “I guess so,” Meg said, trotting to keep up.

  “Taylor!” Heckel called. “I’d like for you to meet a friend of mine.”

  MEG STIFLED A GROAN—after a tortuous hour of heightened sexual awareness, watching Jarett circle the room watching her, she was hoping to spend some time alone with him before her limo turned back into a pumpkin. She was playing with fire, she knew, but after tonight, she’d go back to being boring little Meg Valentine. And while the night was young, she didn’t want to be reminded that she was just a little cinder girl playing dress up. And she definitely wanted another kiss from her prince.

  She smiled as she turned to shmooze Mort Heckel one last time, but the smile froze on her face when she saw his companion. Trey’s father?

  “Taylor,” Heckel said, smiling broadly. “Meet Trey Carnegie, Sr. He’s a big fan of yours.”

  Meg was paralyzed, certain that any second the man who passed her the butter at the breakfast table every Sunday would recognize her.

  He picked up her hand and massaged it. “Hello, Taylor—may I call you Taylor?”

  She nodded, afraid to speak.

  Mr. Carnegie looked at Heckel and cleared his throat mildly.

  “Taylor, I’ll let you visit with Mr. Carnegie while I have a word with your bodyguard—er, Mr. Miller, isn’t it?”

  Jarett nodded, but he remained rooted, looking to Meg for her agreement. A muscle ticked in his jaw. He was reluctant to leave for her sake, Meg realized, but since she was supposed to be Taylor, she felt obligated to please Mr. Heckel. She nodded almost imperceptibly to Jarett. Mr. Heckel settled his arm around Jarett’s shoulder and led him away, talking about something Jarett obviously wasn’t listening to.

  She tore her gaze from his as he retreated, and fixed her attention on the first button on Mr. Carnegie’s suit jacket.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, putting his hand on her waist, pressing her toward the bar.

  “Sparkling water, please,” she murmured, careful to mimic Taylor’s accent. His hand felt like a cold slab of raw meat.

  He scoffed. “Water? That’s no fun. We’ll have two bourbon and waters,” he told the bartender.

  She wanted to point out that hard liquor seemed inappropriate for a children’s charity reception, but she realized that it would be Meg talking, not Taylor. Choosing the path of least resistance, she accepted the glass with a little smile.

  “To new friendships,” he said with a lewd glint in his eye, then clinked her glass noisily.

  She nodded once, then sipped the drink and forced herself to swallow without twitching. He drank deeply, eyeballing her cleavage. She’d heard rumors of Mr. Carnegie’s philandering, but she hadn’t believed them. At home with his family, he seemed so devoted. Meg fumed, thinking of sweet Penny Carnegie stuck in that big house in Peoria, probably ironing her husband’s socks or some
thing.

  “Are you married, Mr. Carnegie?”

  He blanched, then frowned. “No. I’m a widower,” he said in a pitiable tone.

  Meg bit her tongue. “Really? I’m so sorry. How did your wife die?”

  He hesitated. “It was a…gardening accident.”

  “Gardening?” she prodded, enjoying his torment.

  “Yes. There was a tiller and a garden hose, and…it was very ugly,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I still haven’t recovered.”

  “You must be very lonely,” Meg said, dipping a finger in her drink, then touching it to her tongue. She would probably go to hell for this.

  But suddenly Mr. Carnegie angled his head. “Have we met before?”

  She bit her finger. “Ow. N-no, we haven’t met before.” She conjured up a smile. “I’m sure I would have remembered meeting a man like you.”

  He squinted, his bushy eyebrows drawing together. “You seem…familiar somehow.”

  A strangled laughed emerged from her throat. “Well, silly, if you’re such a big fan, then you probably watch my show every week, don’t you?” She knew for a fact that Mr. Carnegie watched only C-SPAN.

  He scratched his temple with his beringed pinkie. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

  She pretended to drink from the glass and caught Jarett’s eye across the room. He looked like a cougar, ready to pounce at any moment. She gave a tiny jerk of her head, and watched Jarett leave Heckel midsentence. Meg turned her attention back to Mr. Carnegie, tolerable now because Jarett was on his way to rescue her.

  “I’d like to take you to dinner,” Mr. Carnegie said abruptly, then reached down to squeeze her hand with his cold one. His eyes were hooded with lust.

  “I’m f-flattered,” Meg assured him. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to pass this time.” Jarett appeared at her side. “You see, I’ve already made plans,” she said, pulling her hand away.

  “Are you ready to go, Taylor?” Jarett spoke to her, but he stared down Mr. Carnegie.

  “Yes,” she said, then flashed the older man a quick smile. “Thank you for the drink, Mr. Carnegie. And thanks for supporting the foundation.”

  Mr. Carnegie looked between her and Jarett, then turned his back to Jarett. “I’ll call you,” he told her, reaching up to stroke the hair that tickled her cheek. It was all she could do not to recoil.

  “Time to go,” Jarett said quietly, although his voice was ominous. Meg gladly walked away from Mr. Carnegie, and was grateful for the com forting touch of Jarett’s warm hand at her waist as they threaded their way through the crowd to the coatroom.

  “Did you know that Carnegie creep is from Peoria?” he murmured as he held the long black coat open for her.

  “Um, yes.”

  He cleared a path through the shouting reporters in the lobby. “Do you know him?”

  Her stomach sunk. “Sort of.”

  He weaved their way to the waiting limo and held open the door, allowing her to duck inside.

  “Who is he?” he asked, crouching to tuck the tail of her coat inside.

  Meg swallowed, knowing the fantasy night she’d been dreaming of all evening was not to be. “He’s…my fiancé’s father.”

  Jarett straightened as if he’d been hit. The light created a halo behind him, so she couldn’t see his face. “Oh,” was all he said. Then he stepped back and closed the door.

  12

  JARETT STOOD ON THE CURB for a few seconds, fighting against the sudden tightness in his chest. Meg was engaged? In love with another man? Perhaps sleeping with another man?

  It was crazy, he knew, to let the news get to him. No matter how comfortable he felt with Meg, no matter how greatly attracted he was to her, the fact was, he’d known the woman for less than a day. He should just chalk up all his fantasies of taking Meg Valentine to bed and giving her a night to remember, to his relative celibacy over the past year, and let it go.

  He had dated occasionally when David lived in L.A., although most of the women he encountered were superficial and brainless. Still, a man had needs, and he enjoyed sex as much as the next man—perhaps more. But after David left, dating had been more trouble than it was worth—bringing a woman back to their apartment would send Taylor into an unbearable funk. And he didn’t spend many nights away because he was afraid of the kind of men Taylor might bring home in his absence.

  Then she’d landed the role on Many Moons. And now that Taylor required his security services, Jarett was suddenly on call at all hours of the day, accompanying her to and from the studio lot, to shoots, and to public appearances. He’d resisted moving into her big new home, but when a stalker had been found sleeping in her guest bedroom, Taylor wouldn’t be consoled—and neither would her parents—until he agreed to move into the basement apartment. And even though he had a separate entrance, he’d never felt comfortable asking a woman back to “his place.”

  Except for the sex, he really didn’t miss the dating scene, because he had no intention of settling down. So the news about Meg’s engagement shouldn’t have bothered him. It had been evident tonight during the storytelling session that she was the type of woman who wanted marriage and kids, which went against the life he had planned for himself. And it wasn’t as if he was falling in love with her….

  No, he decided as he walked around the back of the limo, he should be grateful. Earlier he’d been worried about bedding her and leaving town, but now he had a good reason to keep his distance and resist the attraction altogether.

  He took in a cleansing breath, then exhaled slowly. Yes, everything was as it should be: The marrying kind of people were getting married—Meg and her fiancé, whom he imagined as a rich, soft man who preferred cats to dogs—and the non-marrying kind of people weren’t getting married. Namely, he and Taylor.

  He opened the door and swung inside to sit on the leather seat next to Meg. From his brief glance at her under the illumination of the cab light before he closed the door, she looked pale and tight-lipped. The encounter with her future father-in-law had shaken her up.

  Guilt rolled in his stomach—he should never have involved Meg in Taylor’s mess. He’d allowed an imagined split-second connection between them to pull him back to her. But in reality, the fantasy he’d built in his mind around Meg Valentine was just as much an illusion as the fantasy men built around Taylor. Both images were idealized, even cliché—sexy and sultry versus innocent and naive. But no man or woman was ever that simple.

  Jarett buzzed down the window separating them from the driver and directed him to take them back to the hotel where he and Taylor were staying. There they could deconstruct Meg, and go their separate ways.

  “Jarett,” Meg murmured. “I’d like to explain.”

  “No need,” he said breezily. “You’re engaged—that’s not a difficult concept. Congratulations.”

  “Actually, I’m not engaged…yet.”

  He looked over at her in the dark. “Yet?”

  “Trey asked me to marry him earlier this week, but I haven’t given him an answer.”

  What did that mean? Jarett wondered, even more confused. That she was stringing the poor guy along? That she wasn’t happy? That she didn’t like her jerk of a future father-in-law? “Whatever,” he said.

  “You’re wondering why I kissed you back,” she said.

  “Not particularly.” He was dying to know.

  “Well, to be honest, I’m not exactly sure myself. Maybe I felt like a different person made up like Taylor. Maybe I wanted a little slice of her life.”

  “It’s none of my business,” he said more brusquely than he’d intended. He was suddenly contrite. Hadn’t the woman done him the biggest favor of the century? Pulled off the impossible? And with no small amount of flair?

  Her left hand rested on the seat between them. He reached over to cover her hand, swallowing her small fingers with his large ones. “What I meant to say is that you don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m indebted to you for agreeing to stand in for Taylor t
his evening.”

  She smiled and turned her hand over so their palms were touching. “Like I said, I thought it would be exciting.”

  With his thumb, he slowly stroked the fleshy pad of her palm. “I hope you weren’t disappointed.”

  She sighed and closed her fingers around his, entwining their hands. “It was even better than I expected.”

  They sat like that, holding hands, but sitting carefully apart, even leaning away from each other for several long minutes, until the driver slowed and stopped.

  Jarett reluctantly released her hand, then exited to scan the knot of people gathered in front of the hotel. A few had cameras, waiting for Taylor to emerge. One man hefted a television camera to his shoulder. But it was a sloppily overweight guy wearing a ballcap and a long all-weather coat that gave Jarett pause. He waited and watched, but the man simply stood on the periphery with his hands shoved in his coat pockets.

  With one eye on the crowd, Jarett opened the limo door and took Meg’s hand to help her out. She smiled at the crowd as she walked toward the revolving door of the hotel entrance. Jarett heard the commotion before he saw it. When he spun around, the man who’d caught his eye was running toward Meg, holding high a large disposable cup. Jarett lunged at the same time the man flung the contents of the cup toward Meg. Something wet hit him in the face as he tackled the guy. Screams rang out.

  “Butcher!” the man beneath him yelled. “Tess Canton is a butcher who wears fur!”

  Jarett wrestled to subdue the big man, and glanced toward Meg, who stood frozen, her eyes wide. A wide stripe of what looked like red paint started at her cheek, went across her chest, then down the front of her dress.

  “Meg, go inside!” he yelled. “Now!”

  He waited until she disappeared through the revolving door before he boxed the man up the side of the head. “Be still!” Jarett pulled a pair of handcuffs from the hook he wore in a back belt loop, and clasped the man’s hands together behind his back.

  “Someone call 911 and get the police down here,” he said as he pulled the man to his feet.

  “Tess Canton is fur-wearing animal butcher,” the man snarled.